Blow the Man Down
by PaBurke
Summary: The Winchesters stumbled onto hidden treasure! The trouble is that the treasure belongs to a pirate - obviously - and now the pirate and his ghostly crew wants it back.


**Title: **Blow the Man Down

**Author:** paburke

**Recipient:** mymuseandi

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** slightly naughty song

**Author's Notes:** Season One

**Summary/Prompt: **The Winchesters stumbled onto hidden treasure! The trouble is that the treasure belongs to a pirate - obviously - and now the pirate and his ghostly crew wants it back.

*spnsummergen*

It had been a bad bet from the beginning. They had been trying to dig up a body in a hundred year old burial ground. It was the only grave in the place that the historical society couldn't match with a person. They were hoping to match it with the ghost that was haunting the seaside diner with sea shanties and the occasional rapier thrust, but when they cleaned the dirt off of the wooden boards, the 'coffin' was in the wrong shape. The coffin was more in the shape of a….

"It looks like a hope chest."

"Hope. Chest," Dean echoed. He looked down at the wooden crate. Okay, it was –rather, it had been- carved prettily, sanded and polished. The wood had been carefully fitted together. It was pretty sturdy despite its obvious age.

"You know, what women used to put their linens and stuff in preparation for their wedding day."

Dean had to grin at his brother. He didn't feel bad about not knowing what it was now. "You are such a girl. I can't believe you know what it is. Samantha, did you have a hope chest?"

There might have been a blush on Sam's cheeks, but that didn't mean that Sam didn't retort, "It was to set up their own household. Mothers would help, kinda like you sent me off to Stanford with all the towels that you had stolen from the motel we had been staying at that week."

There was no way that Dean could answer that without severe embarrassment. "What do you think is in it?" Dean didn't wait for Sam to answer; he used the shovel to pry it open, ignoring the locks. He needed to rearrange twice to find the right kind of leverage, but Dean was nothing if not determined and he was making as much noise as possible to prevent Sam from teasing him.

Sam suddenly cocked the shotgun. It was a clear warning. Something had set off his internal alarms. Dean paused. He was braced on the balls of his feet, ready to take a dive whichever way was necessary. He started squirting the wood with lighter fluid. It would take a while for it to soak in enough to light. The brothers listened. There was a rhythmic sound.

thit-THUD-thit-THUD

"What the hell?" Dean muttered. He switched on the EMF meter and all of the lights lit bright. It was a simple confirmation. There was something supernatural watching. He hurriedly moved the lighter fluid to the other side of the chest. When it was time to light the box, they weren't going to have a lot of time.

thit-THUD-thit-THUD

"You get the feeling that this is the grave that we were supposed to dig up?" Sam asked.

"No shit, Sherlock."

Just when Sam was about to advocate backing away and reburying the hope chest, Dean lifted his shovel high and smacked it perfectly on the hinges of the chest. The thing popped open.

"Dean!" Sam hissed.

"We woke it up. Might as well get as many clues as possible before we have to salt and burn the sucker. If we're lucky, the sucker is actually inside your little hope chest, but that would make it where his hope ran out, huh?" Dean used the shovel and wiggled it until it opened.

Sam leaned forward when he saw the sparkles. The little kid in him brightened with glee. "Is that what I think it is?"

Dean used the shovel to move the gold around the chest. He poured in the canister of salt and even more lighter fluid and mixed it in. He stuffed in a couple rags to give the fire something to consume. "Well, damn. There isn't even any silver. This is worthless."

"Worthless?" Sam couldn't believe his brother sometimes. "Worthless? There're hundreds, maybe even a thousand gold pieces in there. Do you have any idea what gold is going for on the stock market these days? Or how much silver you can buy with that much gold."

Dean tossed the shovel at Sam's feet and hauled himself out of the hole. "Remember Blue Cove?"

Sam blinked. It took a few minutes for Sam to figure out where Dean was leading with the statement. "This is completely different, Dean."

"What about San Bruno?"

"Hey, that's not fair. I was only eleven."

"Sammy, you are the only kid I know who goes out looking for pirate treasure in the back yard and actually finds some. And it is always, without fail, attached to some bloodthirsty ghost."

"The Blue Cove one wasn't bloodthirsty," Sam protested. "I nearly got him to pass over and release his hold on his treasure." He ran out of time before the big corporation on the hill had chased the Winchesters off of their property. The San Bruno ghost on the other hand…

Dean just dropped his chin and glared. "Every time you find a pirate treasure, I get stitches."

"You need stitches on hunts more often then you don't," Sam argued. "You simply can't correlate pirate treas-oof!"

Dean had tackled him and just in time too. A machete was where his head had been. Sam was faced with a boot with a buckle and a peg leg. In the back of his mind, he was pleased that he had figured out the thit-THUD-thit-THUD sound. Dean used his shotgun on that pirate. Sam was up on his knees, his shotgun in hand and was horrified to realize that they were greatly outnumbered.

Dean was swearing up a storm. "A pirate crew, Sammy? Really? Just have to get more dangerous every time."

"Not my fault," Sam ground out. "You're the jerk who wanted this job just to learn more dirty drinking songs."

"Oh, blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down," Dean sung.

Sam wanted to kick him. "Don't encourage them to try and kill us, Dean!"

Dean ignored him, "Way aye blow the man down. Oh, blow the man down, bullies, blow him away." Of course, Dean being Dean, every time he said 'blow' he fired his shotgun and blasted a pirate into pieces. Too bad they didn't stay disintegrated. "Give me some time to" BANG "blow the man down!"

The pirates took a step back and paused. Sam and Dean used this opportunity to reload. They waited for the next offense.

They heard a whisper in the wind, "As I was a walking down Paradise Street…"

More joined in, "Way aye blow the man down."

"A pretty young damsel I chanced for to meet," the whisper continued.

This time Dean joined the pirates' song. "Give me some time to blow the man down!"

If Sam had been close enough, he would have smacked his brother hard. As it was, he had to wait for his idiot brother to sing _with_ the pirates the entire song. All. Nine. Verses. Two of which, Sam had never heard before. Sam wanted to use the shotgun just so that he didn't need to hear that damn song anymore. It was worse than ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

Finally that song was over. Dean took a deep breath and Sam _knew_ his brother was about to start another one. Sam elbowed him in the stomach at precisely the right moment and made his brother cough and lean over to catch his breath.

The peg legged pirate stepped forward. His glare roved over both of the Winchesters. He looked a bit confused. "Are ye pirates?"

Sam was about to say, 'no,' when Dean stepped forward with that damn grin. "'Pends on whatcha mean with 'pirates'. We prefer privateers."

The pirate crew seemed to find Dean incredibly funny and roared with laughter. Great, more people –ghosts- with Dean's sense of humor. Sam was doomed. He knew what Dean was doing though. Profilers called it 'establishing a rapport,' soldiers called it diplomacy 'AKA saying nice doggie until your sniper gets in range.' The only problem with Dean making nice was that Sam was his sniper and he couldn't move. Sam couldn't provide an escape route.

"Are you on the side of the govern'r?"

"No, Captain," Dean told him respectfully.

The pirate puffed with pride that someone called him 'captain.' "What side are you on?"

"We mind our own biz'ness," Dean said. "And no one elses'."

"Hmmm, what was your biz'ness with our treasure?"

"Didn't figure you needed it anymore," Dean lied glibly. "A man could always do with more gold."

"Yeah, well, you're wrong," the pirate told Dean. "Our treasure stays ours."

Dean nodded. "No harm, no foul. Let us bury it again and we can part ways."

The pirates looked torn. They wanted their treasure hidden again, but they needed Sam and Dean to get it done. Sam had a sneaky suspicion that the pirates planned to kill Sam and Dean as soon as the treasure was under several feet of dirt. Sam didn't know how Dean was going to get them out of this mess, but he had some sort of plan.

"Bury it," the captain ordered.

Sam and Dean jumped into the hole to obey. Dean fussed at the bottom corner.

"What do you think you're doing?" the captain asked Dean.

"Just bracing the corner," Dean lied. "It had eroded away and was stressing the chest. We don't want it to break."

"It was my daughter's hope chest, so you better fix it right," the captain growled.

"Working, working," Dean said. Finally, he picked up his shovel. Sam picked up his. They worked, quickly at first, but toward the end they slowed down. They didn't try to pack it down. They kept their shotguns close at hand and a wary eye on the pirates.

"Y'know," Dean started as moved a bit of dirt with his shovel. "Burying your treasure in a burial ground was right smart of you. No one would find it here."

"Aye," the captain straightened with pride. "That it was. My idea, of course."

"T'was not!"

And just like that, the pirates started brawling each other. Soon the whole group was involved in the melee. Sam and Dean didn't need to be told what to do. They ran while the getting was good. Sam turned around once. He noticed that some of the pirate ghosts on the edges were starting to go up in flames and the ground where the treasure was buried was smoldering. It would take hours to burn with that little oxygen.

Dean had lit the chest as suspected. They would have to send another hunter to finish the job, probably Bobby, since any remaining pirates would attack Sam and Dean on sight. It didn't really matter much who was sent, since the gold would stay in the ground. Hunters were smarter, they knew that you leave a pirate treasure in the ground because you wouldn't survive that type of determined ghost.

"I can't believe that you could recognize a hope chest, Sammy," Dean said.

Sam groaned. Dean was not going to let a prime teasing opportunity go. He resigned himself to hours of being called a girl.

*spnsummergen*


End file.
